Shogun 2 Ikko-Ikki Faction DLC Out Now

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Something called the Ikko Ikki Clan Pack has just been released for beautiful grand strategy game Total War: Shogun 2, adding a brand-new faction of warrior monks to the game, as well as new skill trees, a new Ikko-Ikki monk agent, eight new units, a new hero and more for the the price of $5. You can buy it here. I’m actually prepared to call it a fairly generous package, compared with the emaciated Babylon and Polynesia packs for Civilization V. Full feature list after the jump.
Who’s still playing Shogun 2 then? I said I’d return after they fixed most of the bugs. Has that happened, then?

The Ikko Ikki “warrior monk” Clan:

* A new clan for use in single or multiplayer Campaign modes and Custom and Multiplayer Battles
* 8 new unit-variants specific to the Ikko Ikki clan
* New skill trees
* New Ikko Ikki Monk Agent with his own specific skill tree

The Ikko Ikki Clan Pack also includes:

* The Warrior Nun unit – can be trained by any clan except the Ikko Ikki
* New Naginata Warrior Monk hero
* New Historical Battle: Nagashima (Ikko Ikki VS Oda)
* Ikko Ikki armour set for Avatar – includes hood, robes and barefoot leg-pieces.
* New Retainers for use in the Avatar Conquest mode:

I’m sorry the game doesn’t launch for you, Bungle, but I just booted it up myself. I do have to admit that the whole DX11 thing was a bunch of sound and fury for nothing, though.

As far as I can tell, a half dozen campaigns in, most of the bugs that remain are lurking in the multiplayer. The netcode, matchmaking, and balance still seem off for what should be the highlight of the game. On the singleplayer side, the campaign AI’s still a bit hapless, though that’s in no small part due to a somewhat perverse economic structure, and there’s a lot of weird design decisions that modding can only do so much to pick apart.

Still, I haven’t yet begun to feel the sinking regret of Medieval 2 and Napoleon, which says something. Somehow I’m able to appreciate the care that went into this game, even if I feel that care would have been better spent teaching the AI to recognize when it’s charging a spear wall.

Bugs wise, I’ve had a better experience with Shogun than any TW game since probably the original. I’ve not touch the MP, but the SP is really pretty sharp. The food supplies mechanic is awful – you can find your whole empire brought to its needs by capturing a province that had an existing shortage, and it takes multiple turns to extricate yourself through research and building – but that’s design rather than bug. I think the graphics patch was a classic CA debacle though – I’m not convinced I can even spot the DX11 bells and whistles, but no AA for two months after release is ridiculous.

The only bug I’ve found is is a weird one – if you field seige units the AI leaves half its archer units piled on top of each other at the back of the map. Whilst I wouldn’t say the battle AI is actually smart now – AI attacks still just consist of a head-on charge – it manages to rarely look stupid, and its so good at responding to cavalry that I find they’re pretty useless now. The battles are over so quickly in Shogun that the micro-managing required of cav units makes them more effort than they’re worth.

Also, it’s been discounted pretty much everywhere…on retail for £12 at GAME.com, and on digital download from £18 at GetGames, although I ordered that yesterday and got an invalid key. Still, if you want to buy the full game, now’s the time.
Cheers to Lewie P and @savygamer for finding the GAME deal…

There’s a couple of good mods that change how Realm Divide works. Instead of the vanilla style, where a negative penalty gradually builds at -5 per turn until it hits -100 on Normal difficulty, most mods make the event an immediate -60 hit that wears off. That tends to make the endgame a battle between two coalitions, as opposed to the insane dogpile that Creative Assembly seems convinced players want.

As for multiplayer, I have had fun the past few weeks but can’t attest to much else.

I enjoy it, but I never played multiplayer on the previous Total War games. The clan combat/avatar xp/veterancy system in Shogun 2 gives a sense of overarching progression now that has really hooked me.

And Realm divide is survivable as long as you make sure you’re prepared for it and know where your opponents will attack from. An ally doesn’t hurt either. I agree though that the realm divide mechanic is a bit over the top, would be nice to be able to keep at least some of your allies throughout the game. It would also be cool if AI factions could have realm divide happen to them.

Realm Divide is just something you need to prepare for. One good thing to do is conquer after you everyone goes hostile is to conquer a couple of hostile provinces and make them vassals. These vassals will remain loyal to you and provide a good buffer while you consolidate and focus your attacks.

I actually bought it this morning but don’t intent to play it anytime soon (Reason being it was only £20 on Steam and I’m still in the midst of destroying the polish with my Russian horsey men on Medieval 2).

There’s this one daft fellow on TWCenter who’s been banging his head against a hardcoded brick wall for weeks in his attempts to make a custom Ikko Ikki faction. I wonder how it feels to be equal parts overjoyed and slighted.

The Ikko Ikki dlc seems like a decent start to me, I’m looking forward to whatever else they come up with. I hope we get a lot of meaty additions to the game. I love Shogun 2 but I miss the crazy variety of Empire.

Also, does this add more achievements? I thought I saw somewhere that it does, but I don’t see anything new on the game’s achievement page.

Normally don’t go in for factional DLC’s but the Ikko Ikki always looked interesting to me in the campaign, they have their own religion or something don’t they? As well as a quite central starting location, meaning you can choose your battles a little more than most.

The Ikko Ikki were a subsect of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, which you might call a sort of “Protestant” Buddhism, as it places more emphasis on personal worship (basically reciting the prayer to the Buddhasitva Amida – “Namu Amida Butsu”). They’re notable for establishing independent, almost communist communities, fanaticism, and a propensity for using guns in combat. Their main fortress was on the site where Osaka Castle now stands.

The original Shogun inspired me to write a paper on warrior monks during my Japanese studies, where the Ikko Ikki featured prominently. Funny, how that circle turns around.

Bought Shogun from Gamersgate for £20 and next day Steam do the same deal. Grr!
(not that I’ve lost money but installation faffing a hassle, after it registers on steam, steam insists on trying to download whole thing again. Have to disconnent internet and mess about in cmd to stop it.)

Anyway this looks interesting, seems to be a more meaty than the “limited edition” clans.

$5 isn’t bad, it seems like such a thing that should have already been in the game to begin with but I get it, they did some extra work. I’ll still wait for the inevitable steam sales. Last time I nabbed all the Empire/Napoleon stuff for like $5 when all of it was $20. I know people on TW forums will still be trying to crack the files to make this free, they’re possessed.